Next on the list of things to fix was the headlight switch in the dash, at some point in the cars past the switch died & would only turn on the side lights, the second circuit that powered the main headlights no longer worked… so a previous owner decided not to repair that but to bypass it by fitting a new toggle switch under the dash behind the aftermarket gauge cluster… now obviously that wasn’t going to get past a roadworthy inspection here so I found a NOS headlight switch on the interweb to do the repair properly..

So now I had to do one of the jobs that I hate on old cars… I had to pull the dash apart.. I hate doing this on old cars as after decades the parts & connectors get very brittle & you never know what sort of mess you will find behind there & given the level of past workmanship this car has had I didn’t have high expectations I can tell ya..

First step was to unbolt the steering column saddle to allow the wheel & column to drop down out of the way to give me the maximum wiggle room required to get the dash apart

Then I had to undo the 6 screws that hold the dash light panel onto the crashpad, once that’s levelled down you can flip it over & rest it onto of the dash, the wiring is long enough to allow for that

Once that was out of the way I could then see the top screws that hold the switch panel & the gauge panel in place.. the switch panel has to come out first

Once the screws are undone the switch panel can be carefully wiggled out of place & there is just enough play in the wiring to let it hand down enough for you to get your fingers in behind to unhook the connectors

Now when I went to undo the connector for the windscreen wipers/washers I found that the connector had been cable tied together by someone

Why had the connector been cable tied I hear you ask… well because the connector clearly has a short that is causing the plastic to melt!!!!!! Now did they fix the problem as clearly that much heat in the wiring behind the dash is not a good thing… no they cable tied it together as clearly the now melted connecter was not holding on well enough.. I swear some of the work done on this car is a crime.. & all I can say is this, for whom ever is responsible for this… may a hive of flesh eating termites infest your rectum

Switch panel out

New headlight switch vs old

New headlight switch installed

Then I had to remove the toggle switch that had been installed & trace it’s wiring back to find where they cut the original so I could repair that to allow the new switch to work

I love the way the wiring has been altered on this car, I really love how they clearly didn’t have any new wires to use so they just connected together odd lengths of wire to make up what they needed… & no I’m not making this up… the wires change colour & gauge on this car… so if someone is in the car tracing the 5mm red wire.. that can become the 3mm black wire & then the orange wire before it reaches it end point in the engine bay!!!

Once I traced the wires it was at the high beam switch in the foot well that they spliced in to get the feed to their toggle switch.. oh & do we use terminals or solder or connector blocks… no just twist the wires together & run a bit of tape over them…. That’s the way…

Once I’d removed all that crap, I resoldered the original wires together & tested the new switch… works a treat… job done.

Now whilst I had the dash half apart I removed the gauge panel as well

With that out of the way I was able to see the badly scratched & glazed gauge lenses

As I knew I’d be replacing the light switch & as such the dash would be apart I had bought a new one… now the manual says you have to remove the whole gauge cluster to remove the lenses but that’s not true the little clips that hold it in place can be carefully pried out using a small flat head screw driver

New vs old

I took the opportunity to clean the gauge faces whilst I was at it.. but I resisted the urge to roll back the clock

When you remove the lens the cup that separates the quad set of gauges for Fuel, Temp, Oil & Alt & is stuck to the lens & must be carefully removed by breaking the melted plastic tabs that hold it on

Then I sat that cup onto the new lens & heated up the end of a flat head screw driver so I could melt the plastic holding pins flat to hold it in place

It makes a huge difference to the look of the dash, I can’t believe how hard it was to read the gauges until I now look at them in clarity…

Now whilst testing the new headlight switch I noticed that the passenger side rear light was out again… this has always been a troubled light on this car, normally wiggling it’s connections does the trick.. but I figured it was finally time to work out where it’s problems lay… turned out to be an earthing issue.. so I pulled the rear light clusters out & found that the body had been painted where the cluster bolts on & is supposed to pick up its earth.. so I’ll sand that back to bare metal this week & clean it all up properly before putting it back together

As I was lucky enough to be witness to some fantastic wiring repairs behind the dash I started to trace out all the aftermarket wiring to see just how bad it really was…. God I wish I hadn’t… there is just some stuff that you never want to see…. As I said the wiring uses different gauge wires & different colours on the same run… if this wasn’t my car it would be funny… when I was tracing the wiring to the coil & the CD unit on the firewall it got really fun… parts of the ignition wiring look like this..

Wires wrapped together & covered in a single layer of tape

& my favourite… this wire is connected to the ballast resistor.. it’s an ill-fitting blade connector with two other wires just wrapped around the connector & then taped over… quality work I’m sure you’ll agree… no wonder this car has so many electrical gremlins the wiring is a complete cluster****…

So that was it on the weekend… I know that this mess is beyond my skills as I’m no auto electrician… but a mate of a mate is… so he’s coming over this weekend to no doubt laugh at this mess.. hopefully he can help sort it out too & tidy the car up to the point where it runs & it’s a deathtrap waiting to burst into flames at any moment

So I got nowhere near as much done on the weekend as I’d wanted as the Auto electrician that I had lined up to come & help pulled out at the very last minute on Sat with a very lame excuse… basically it was going to be too much like hard work for him to be arsed… & gave me no time to get someone else… so I figured I’d tinker with the little issues & see if I couldn’t get something fixed.

First up was the rear lights, the passenger side was an earth issue as described, so once I clean up the contact points & reinstalled the lights that worked fine, noticed that the driver’s side was much brighter than the passenger side so a quick look showed that the bulb contacts where in the wrong way round & the lights where activating the brake element not the dimmer light element.. flipped that out & put it back right & hey presto all the rear lights work now

Next up was to see where all my earth woes stem from, the lights always flicker when on now & the volt gauge & the aftermarket tacho bounces all over the place, so I had a look at the main battery to earth cable.. whoever painted the car did a very good job… they painted the captive nut that the earth runs too & the bolt that goes into it…. So I ran a tap through the nut & wire brushed back the bolt & the contact point & now the car has a real earth.. the lights no longer flicker at all & the volt gauge is working again showing steady readings… the tacho is no longer bouncing around but it’s still not working it just sits on idle no matter what revs the engine is at.. I’ll look into that later

I decided to play around with the wipers a bit more, the motor is on it’s way out I think it starts off great real fast but then slows to a dull sweep no matter which of the 3 speeds I select… also the park function is stuffed & it only parks the wipers 1 time in 10 now at best… the connection where it joins the firewall was corroded to hell

I gave it a good clean but it made no difference so I’ve ordered a new one now to replace it… on a positive note I found where they cut off the power wire for the washers & I’ve wired in my new washer setup & that works a treat, a small win… but a win

I’d made up some little extensions to go between the wiper switch & the connecter so that I could do some testing with the dash still apart… the power connector on the switch side gets red hot & the last time I had the wipers on there where sparks inside the switch also….

So I’ve ordered a NOS wiper switch for her now & a new wiper motor wiring harness.. so hopefully that plus the new motor will see the end of these issues..

Next task will be to look at the fuse panel on the dash side of the firewall to see what sort of genius electrical work has been done here…. As you can see from below lots of aftermarket wires around here, most are just raw & wrapped around the end of a fuse…

Others like this white wire are just open to the world & not hooked up (I hope) to power…

I’ll have to trace that & some of its mates out too to see where they go… hopefully I can get to the end of this crap soon & just drive the bloody car again..

So I’m in that holding pattern now of waiting for some parts that I need to finish off some of the jobs on the car, whilst waiting I’ve been looking for jobs to do that where lower down on the to-do list. One of the things that I wanted to do was to look at the Six Pack… mine was running way too rich & it didn’t seem to make a difference what I did with the mixture screws it was just always rich.. so I got myself a Carb rebuild kit & I also found a reconditioned 350 Holley Carb that I could scavenge for some bits if needed..

There is a lot of fuel weeping stains on this centre carb around the metering block so if nothing else these gaskets need replacing

Also the accelerator pump is leaking too

Also the steel fuel lines & connecting blocks are all weeping also, luckily I got a set of them when I bought the car so I’ll swap them whilst I’m at it… no of course it wouldn’t be a day working on this car if I was cursing the botched job of some previous owner… in this case it’s the ½” connections that do up the hard fuel lines.. they were all statin to be nicely rounded off.. my fave was the one to the rear most Carb… the only way I could get it off was with a vice grips.. & I secretly suspect that may be the tool of choice that was used to put it on last…

Centre Carb pulled

Once I had it off, I set to work pulling it apart being careful to not damage any gaskets as I did so as I wanted to get a good idea as to what state the originals where in. I pulled the base plate off to check for damage, there is a tiny bit of play on the shaft but not too much & the butterfly’s hadn’t been bent, so I was happy with that

I had suspected that the powervalve may have been shagged due to the fact that she was running so rich & no matter that I did it would never lean out properly… I couldn’t get over the amount of corrosion on the metering block & the powervalve itself… luckily I’d already replaced all the fuel lines… I’m unsure if this is due to crap fuel in Ireland or if the tank had/has water in it… I guess I’ll have to add flush the tank to the list of things to do now

I decided to replace the whole metering block rather than just clean it up & replace the powervalve & the jets, the one on the rebuilt 350 I had was an exact match, so I spent quite a while & a lot of happy smelling Carb cleaner going over all the bits that I was going to reuse & she seemed to clean up a treat

Of course there was no inline filters in either of the 3 Carbs on the car, so I decided to fit some new ones along with new retainers, I don’t know if they really do a lot, but I had them so why not fit them I figured

I then hooked up my shiny new hard fuel lines & connector blocks.. & they leak…. Bugger… but from what I can gather on the interweb, they all leak.. new or old doesn’t seem to matter, so I’m in two minds now, do I try & seal these up or just chuck them & make up a set of sealed braided lines to do the same job but with some flexibility built in…

With the newly rebuilt Carb back on the car I decided to leave the two outer Carbs disconnected & only work on tuning the centre one.. before too long I got her to a nice mix where she was running nicely & you could actually stand at the back of the car without the exhaust fumes making your eyes water.. once that was done I then spent some time getting the linkage lengths for the two outer Cards adjusted up so that they were fully closed when running on the centre carb alone & fully in sync when they kicked in, looking at the marks on the threads for where they were to where they are now shows that they were always open a wee bit in the past..

Next job was to replace my wiper motor with the rebuilt one I got, should be a simple 5 minute job I figured…

It’s only 3 nuts on the front, one wire connector block & one nut on the rear where it connects to the arm… how hard could it be..

I noticed something was off when I was undoing the 3 front nuts... they were not all the same size… actually all three where different… so great more past mechanical muppetry to deal with.. once I had the old one off I was able to see clearly the issue..

Two of the three studs that are welded into the body are very badly damaged… the thread has been stripped off by someone using the wrong nuts & just forcing them down the studs….

The one above is the worst… I’m going to try & see if I can save these by rethreading them with a tap & die set… but I fear that they may be gone too far.. if they are then I will have to cut them off & drill them out of the car & use bolts to replace them I guess… not happy!!

I checked the old & new wiper motors & they seem to be identical so that’s a plus at least I guess…

So this will probably be it for a while now as I have a bit of travel coming up both for work & for a bit of a holiday so it will be a few weeks before I can get back to this… hopefully the last of the parts I’m waiting on will arrive whilst I’m away so I can get on with this & get to driving the car again….

Ok, so it’s been a while since I updated this thread.. I was travelling for a while & then work was crazy busy & then I was waiting for some parts to arrive & long story short I only really got around to doing anything with the car in the last week….

The first job was to finish what should have been a simple swap out of the wiper motor… so as you may remember from above the 3 bolts where stuffed & the threads badly damaged… so it was out with my trusty tap & die set again…

Now as you can see this is a T bar die set… & the area I needed to get this into was not really what you’d want for such a tool… if it wasn’t for the fact that this was late at night & I just wanted to get this done I’d have waited & bought a die nut to do this in a fraction of the time

But I was not going to let it go another day without doing something to the car… so there was a lot of removing one handle & getting a bit of turn then swapping handles going on…

Next up was to replace the wiper switch in the dash that is shorting out & getting red hot with the NOS switch that I got off the interweb..

The dash has been apart for a while now as I never put it back together after replacing the headlight switch with the NOS one of those I had, so it was easy to get to the wiper switch as it was on the bench.. now the wiper switch is activated by a control knob which would need to be removed..

Now I would have assumed that everyone knew that these are normally always held on with a tiny grub screw, as you can see here

However mine is showing the clear signs of where someone in the cars past has just used a pliers to pull the knob off & has damaged it… I must look into getting a replacement one as the feel of this one now annoys me, for now I’ll just swap it with the dimmer switch one that I never use

The wiper switch is held into the switch cluster with a nut on the threaded barrel of the switch

Once that is off there is slot cut in the panel & a key on the switch that you must rotate to line up to allow you to slide the old switch out..

Once I fitted the new switch I tested it all 3 or 4 times to be sure to be sure that I don’t need to remove the dash again in a hurry

Whilst I had the dash apart I decided to replace the 3 coloured lenses that show the left & right turn signals & the brake warning light as the originals where badly scuffed & faded & since I had replaced the gauge lenses I figured it would only be a halfarsed job if I didn’t do these as well..

& now the dash is happily back together again.. job done

Once it was all back together the park was not set right for my car, so when the wipers where switched off they would stop about 2 to 3 inches up from where they should be on the stops, luckily this is an easy fix as Dodge made several park positions for each wiper motor & you set them depending on which car yours is… so mine was set for a B body car, you can see where the park setting indicator is highlighted here by my screwdriver

Once I adjusted it to be set for an E body car then things where all shiny again & the wipers now work fine, park & the switch in the dash doesn’t short out spark & set the car of fire.. win win win if you ask me

This is just a quick update.. ever since I’ve had the car she’s had some small fuel weep issues from the hard lines that connect the 3 carbs of the 6 Pack together, now when I bought the car I got a new set of hard lines & blocks with her.. so I was a little disappointed when after I replaced all the lines I found that she still had a weep… seems from the research I’ve done this is quite normal for 6 Pack hard lines..

So I figured what I’d do is to make myself up a set of custom flexible braided fuel lines to fix this once & for all… so this is my hard line set up compared to my braided line set up

It fits up real nice to the 6 Pack… very happy with how this looks…

It gets pretty tight for space once I hook up all the vacuum lines, but everything fits & nothing fouls…. & most importantly nothing leaks….

I also got myself a new centre fuse block from painless wiring

The plan for this is to replace this crappy old fuse block under the dash with it… however this is going to be a new project for next winter, I don’t plan on extending this project any longer now..

Well this is probably more of a garage tool update than an actual project update on the Chally… I have a few things that I still need to sort out before I’m 100% happy to put the car back on the road. Firstly the gearbox is still leaking.. I thought when I put the new pan on that I had solved that issue, but it now is clear that the selector shaft seal is also leaking.. a known issue for the 727 boxes, so I have ordered one of them now & will be fitting that soon. Now depending on who you talk too it seems that most recommend that this is a gearbox out fix, whilst some suggest that if you drop the pan off & if you remove the whole valve body assembly thru the bottom of the box you can then pop the seal out from underneath… I’m not sure which of those two options I like the sound of best, but stay tuned & you’ll find out….. I might try & see if I can squeeze my hand in past the exhaust & the torsion bar & get a seal pick in to stab the old seal & twist it out, it looks pretty tight in there so I’m not sure that can be done..

Also the fuel gauge has never been right in this car, F is full & E is hall full & then a ½” to the left of E is empty… the previous owner told me that he tried bending the pickup float in the tank to get it right but it’s far from right,

So I bought a new pickup & I’ll fit that in the tank when I’m underneath doing the gearbox seal.

Now it should be a whole lot easier to do both of these jobs as I finally decided to stop talking myself out of buying a hoist & I got one… so this weekend two boxes turned up.. one held the hydraulic pump

The next box if you could call it that was a 750KG frame of the actual hoist parts

This jigsaw did come with some instructions, but to be honest it was about 4 thousand words that where clearly written by someone who’d never seen one of these hoists & had only been given a vague description of how it all went together over the phone… six clear pics would have been perfect… luckily it’s pretty hard to stuff this up & with the help of a good mate to do some of the lifting of the bits we got stuck in..

Once we had the two ends assembled as per below

We noticed that they were so close to the height of the top ramp (which houses the hydraulic ram & is over 200KG’s as a result) that we could cheat & not lift the thing at all… so we wheeled the frame over using my trolley jack & then used some stands to take the weight as we unbolted the end frames off & then moved the hoist cross arms in to meet the ramp… too easy

No before anyone asks, I went for a 4 poster & not a two as I am only renting & drilling & bolting a two post in my landlords garage would not have gone down well… also this can be used to allow me to stack park some cars & get another car into the garage… & lastly because this specific model came with a caster option that means I can very easily move the hoist to any point in the garage I want

You can even move the hoist with a car on it… I don’t think I’ll do that a lot, but if the need if ever there it’s nice to know I have the option..

Now that I have one, the irony is not lost on me that I spent months on my back replacing all the suspension on the Chally cursing that it was so cramped a space…. Because I’m only 5’10” there is more than enough room for me to stand fully upright under the car

Even if the roller door is up I still fit…

& we still get all the cars in without using the stack parking yet… hmmmm maybe I need a new car now I have a spot to put it…

Ok, so a bit of an update, first a couple of small jobs then the big one, the transmission job… so as I said earlier in the thread the fuel gauge has never been right in this car, F is full & E is hall full & then a ½” to the left of E is empty… the previous owner told me that he tried bending the pickup float in the tank to get it right but it’s far from right… so I had all the bits needed to swap this out & I decided that this simple task would be the first ever job carried out on my shiny new hoist…

So I had my new fuel sender

& I had a new filter for the end of it

I also has the fuel line earth strap that I noticed my car no longer has

Getting to the fuel sender is nice & simple, it mounted into the side of the fuel tank with a simple locking ring… you can see here that as the earth strap is missing someone made up an earth wire that wraps around the hose clamp now

Removal of the sender is simple, the lock rang is a castle style so you simply knock one of the uprights with a screwdriver (you can get a special tool also) & undo the lock

First thing I noticed when I removed the old sender, it has no filter… no wonder the filters in the fuel line fill with crap so much

If you compare the old manually bent one with the new one you can see where the old one is kinked just after it comes out of the body, with this bit no longer being straight it was never going to read right

I slid the new one complete with a new rubber gasket back into the tank

Then I tapped the lock ring closed & hooked up the sender wire to the gauge, the fuel line & of course the earth strap for the sender….

Job done, & it took about 2 minutes under the hoist & not a drop of petrol rolled down my arm & onto my chest whist I was standing up working on it… working with a hoist is so civilised… hopefully now I’ll also have a better understanding as to just how much fuel I have in the car

Now the next job I tackled was one of the small jobs that I’m sure most normal people wouldn’t be bothered even doing.. but I can be a bit OCD with things & sometimes for me the little details matter more than the big ones… so I decided to fix something small that has be bothering me ever since the day I first bought this car…. This…

It’s an aftermarket aerial & it doesn’t bloody fit… it rattles around in the hole scratching the paintwork & generally annoying me every time I see it or worse hear it rattle.. the problem seems fairly simple, the aftermarket ones all seem to be fixed in size for a 25mm hole & the one on the Challenger is closer to 35mm & as such there is only a mm or two for the thing to grip..

Now also the aerial itself was snapped… so it rattled around & didn’t even work… so I removed it

Now, I don’t think I’ve ever even listened to the radio in this car… but I couldn’t leave the rattling bit in there & I couldn’t leave the empty hole either & I didn’t like the look of any of the bungs that I saw to cover up the hole… so I bought a genuine Challenger one..

The main body that sticks into the fender is huge compared to the aftermarket ones

The top piece is not just a flat plate that sites on top of the fender, it’s designed to use the two locating notches in the fender & to pass thru & actually lock into the bracket underneath & the curved bracket that tightens it up against the underside of the bodywork is much thicker & looks like it won’t bend as easily as the old one had

Then the final locking nut screws into the center of the whole deal

Then the actual antenna piece screws into the assembly… sadly this is not a retractable one, so I will have to unscrew it when I’m putting the car cover on or I’ll have to use the little kit that came with the cover to make an isolated hole for just such a requirement… right now I think I’ll just screw it off to put the cover on as it doesn’t impact the rest of the thru body parts

Again… I know that this is very very OCD of me… but I gotta tell ya seeing how this genuine piece actually follows the curve of the fender & just looks right made me smile.. but then as my other half & most of my close friends keep reminding me.. I’m not all there

When I get a chance over the next few days I’ll do up the transmission seal job…. Some good fun & games had there thanks to some previous mechanical muppetry… but sure it wouldn’t be my car without that…

Ok, so last weekend was the date set to drop the transmission from the Challenger & swap out some leaky seals…. I’ve done a similar job on my XB Coupe a few times laying on my back using axle stands & a trolley jack to support the trans on the way out… so I was kinda looking forward to being able to stand fully upright under the car whilst doing this one… I had also splashed out on a new toy for the garage for just this job too..

So all of this work is to sort this small seal, this is a crappy pic.. but this is the selector shaft.. that’s the shifter bracket at the bottom & the kick down connector at the top… this is what is leaking

I will also be inspecting the oil pump seal & bush & the rear yoke seal whilst I have the box out to see if they need replacing as well whilst I’m at it.. now before putting the car up in the air there are two bolts at the top of the engine that have to be undone

They are had to get a good pic of & even harder to get my fat hand into… luckily for me my other half is happy to help as she has done many times in this project & has much smaller hands for just such an occasion

The other trans to engine block bolts are easy to get to from underneath so up in the air she went

Then I dropped the tail shaft out & started working out in my head the order in which I should start pulling stuff off… first was the speedo cable, simply unscrew & then tie up out of the way to be sure it’s safe

Then it was on to the starter motor, even though this one is very compact, it pretty much touches the extractors… I might have to look into some sort of heat shield when I’m putting all back together.. once I had the starter unbolted, I tied it up out of the way

Then I unhooked the trans cooler pipes that run the coolant to the rad & the external cooler that is fitted up front

Also in the above photo is the bracket that holds the gear selector cable, that came off & I disconnected that cable & also the kick down cable from the selector shaft brackets

Then the neutral safety switch, that’s the thingy with the 3 prongs coming out form it..

I had to actually remove one of the cooler lines completely before I could get the access panel off that would allow me to get to the torque converter & the 4 bolts that hold it to the engines flex plate

Now I knew that the previous owner had had this gearbox out to get the TC repaired when he owned the car…. So the TC & the flex plate are already marked with alignment marks so that I put it back together in the same way it came apart… nice.. however I noticed that the drain plug for the TC is actually welded in on this one.. so I can’t drain it before removal.. odd but not a show stopper

Ok, now I know what your all thinking…. Dave, where is the mechanical muppetry you promised us, fear not I won’t disappoint… so on a slightly closer inspection of the bolts that hold the TC to the flexplate they just don’t look right….

The next hour or so in the garage was entertaining for want of a better word… now in case you can’t make out from the pics above what’s wrong with the bolts.. let me jump ahead in the story & show you some close ups of the bolt heads after I finally managed to get them out of the car…

So.. somebody doing this job before rounded the heads off of these nuts.. so many of the nuts & bolts on this car where rounded off I’m starting to think that a previous owner only had metric tools & was too cheap to invest in some imperial ones for this car… anyway… someone rounded the heads off & then instead of replacing the 4 bolts they welded new metal to them & then attempted to grind them back to be somewhat bolt head shaped… or at least how I imagine someone who’s never seen a bolt head thinks that they should be shaped…. Now I’m all for recycling & I know that we will eventually run out of raw materials one day… but I cannot comprehend why someone would do this…. Oh & the cost of the 4 new bolts that I have bought to replace these….. $5.95!!!! so it’s not like they were made of unobtainium or something…

Now this would have been laughable & fun if the bolts had of come undone easy…. But no… whom ever did this made the edges great for tightening them, BUT left the edges rounded off on the sides you need to undo the bolts… & then they used Loctite on the them…. This issue was compounded by the fact that the bolt heads are half height just on 5mm thick & in such a tight space that a socket couldn’t get in… I spent a long time & I mean I long time heating each bolt & then teasing them out…

The last one was so badly worn that I ended up having to commit the cardinal sin of gripping it as hard as possible with a pair of vicegrips & using that to get it loose as the spanner just kept getting kicked off by the rounded edges.. at one point I pictured myself having to weld a nut onto the face of the bolt to give me something to get a spanner on… but finally after well over an hour I stumbled upon the correct line of profanity that allowed the bolt to come undone…

Then I removed the cross member at the back of the extension housing, this needed me to unbolt the exhaust flanges to separate the exhaust from the extractors… but I only needed to drop the exhaust about 2 inches to get the cross member past them… so I was glad that I didn’t have to pull the exhaust off for this & then undid the last two bolts holding the bell housing to the engine & pulled the whole box back an inch to pop it off the dowels of the block…. The trans was now free from the car & resting solely on the trans jack

Then simply cracked the release on the jack & slowly watched the trans lower to a nice workable height..

I’ll give in here a bit of a clean now that I have the room to get in

Last thing to remove was the kickdown & shifter brackets off of the actual selector shaft itself

Now looking closely at the suspect seal, it’s hardly shocking to see that it was leaking.. I’ve always installed seals using something uniform flat & round to gentle knock them into place… this one looks like someone used a hammer & a screwdriver… it was dented as hell…

Once I popped the seal out I then gave the whole assembly a good clean

Then I put the new seal in…. finally

I now have passed the box onto someone who knows what they are doing to knock out the front pump bush & seal & replace them.. as per the advice I got from Jaws… I just don’t have the pressing tools to replace a bush & I don’t want to risk damaging anything… so the box should be going back in one night this week… & now I also waiting for my 4 new bolts to turn up…. Ah the joys

Ok, it’s been a long long time since I updated this thread & there are a few reasons for that… work was crazy in December & that added to Xmas happening limited my time in the garage & then to throw a big spanner in the works parts went missing in transit.. by the time parts turned up (my brakes are missing still, but more on that later) I was then travelling for the best part of 3 weeks in January & then I blinked & it was March already…

Right so where are we at then…. & I apologise in advance for the lack of a lot of pics as I had the CF card in my camera go dodgy & I lost some of the shots as corrupt sadly..

So the seals on the gearbox where sorted & then the box was put back in, sadly I don’t have a single picture of that… but it’s simply the reverse of the removal above so not rocket science really

The special bolts took a week or two longer that I had hoped & I had a bugger of a time trying to find any locally.. seems the half height bolt head was a killer. At one point I almost bought some standard head height bolts & then turned down the head height to what I needed.. but I just used the time to clean all the parts of the car that I now newly had access too & then the bolts finally came..

Once the box was back in I figured that was the last of my hassle’s it would only take an hour or so to reconnect everything & hook it all back together..

Wrong… you would believe how hard it was to find a set of these..

I spent a whole Saturday morning visiting every parts place local to me & even tried the two exhaust places close by… one wouldn’t sell me a set unless I brought them the car for them to do the work! & the other was manned by a very unhelpful child who proceeded to tell me that that what I wanted did not in fact exist & that all exhaust flanges are two bolt hole jobs only & he couldn’t get his head around how mine could have 3 yet not be a triangular exhaust system… I fear for the future some days… anyway off to ebay I went & then within a few days I had these in my hot little hands

So I was finally able to bolt the exhausts back up.. I forgot to swing past the exhaust joint to show the window licking muppet my triangular exhaust gaskets..

I took the opportunity to repair a small hole that was starting to appear in one of the mufflers.. I plan on replacing the whole thing once the car is officially on the road with some plates, so I was happy to just use some muffler putty for now

Then it was time to do some road trails as the car hadn’t ever moved on the new suspension & I wanted to drive it around for a bit to let it all settle so I could do another adjustment of camber & caster.. so got a permit to drive an unregistered car & did several test flights

God that new suspension has made a huge difference to this car, it’s so flat in the turns & there isn’t a single trace of wallow now & she now just squats under acceleration & takes off (actually just spins the wheels easier now) whereas before the rear would sag & the whole front would pick up robbing the wheels of that lovely torque that should be propelling me forward & not twisting the chassis.. once she’s registered on the road & my second order of brakes (long story) turn up & get fitted I’ll do a proper write up on the improvements.. but for now I’m a happy boy..

So it was back to the garage to redo all the suspension setup now that it had a few miles on it to settle in

Back up on the hoist to check on that gearbox leak that I fixed… dry as… job done & happy me

She then developed a leak in the brake system somewhere & that lead to me having to do a lot of fault finding & brake bleeding so I bought a one man air driven system to make my life easier & to stop annoying my other half by making her pump the pedal for me

Then I managed to find a local sparky who was happy to work on a muscle car (so many people run when you tell them you want to work on something that isn’t brand new) so I gave it to him for a few days & it came back with all the wiring nicely tidied up & he was very impressed that the car hadn’t burst into flames at some point… he reckoned it was some of the worst home wiring attempts he’d ever seen, I made sure to point out that it was before my ownership… anyway the whole ignition was stripped & rewired

& my tacho finally works again… the needle used to just bounce around in a world of its own regardless of what he engine was doing & that would set the shift light off constantly which was distracting to say the least..

So now we’re back up to date again… this Saturday I have an appointment with my engineer for him to go over the car & see what he’s happy with & more importantly not happy with & she’s then booked in to have 3 point rear seat belts fitted & hopefully then I can take her for a roadworthy… so this week she swapped places with the XB on the hoist as the next project ramps up

Just a quick update to this.. so I took the Challenger for a long 100 mile shakedown run on Saturday across to see an engineer to have him go over the car & see what he thought of my work to date. I was very happy that he managed to do that without using words like halfarsed or deathtrap.. & never once did he say well that’s not gone well.. so now the next step is to take her for a roadworthy & then get some plates on her… happy days..

She didn’t miss a beat on the 100 mile drive, some of which was in heavy traffic in heat & she never even looked like overheating so I was very happy with that. The new suspension is a firm ride, firm but not harsh over the bumps but I have adjustable shocks so I can probably adjust a bit more compliance in if I need to… the difference to how she used to drive is a million miles away, it’s real point & squirt stuff now.. it show up just how much sidewall flex I’m getting from the high walled 14’ tires on there now, but I have some new wheels on order to fix that soon.

When I got her home I gave her a wash & even though I’m actively trying to stop finding stuff to fix or replace on this car I couldn’t help myself… the door & window rubbers are all well shot & whilst the wind noise doesn’t bother be as always have a window down anyway.. the fact that the car leaks like a submarine with a screen door is annoying… so I had a look at..

So the rubber strip that seals between the front & rear side windows on the passenger side is well past it

With the windows up there is close to a 5mm gap

The driver’s side is not much better

The roof seal is cracked, split & deformed now too

& the door rubbers are no better, they are in a bad state too.. splitting & dry cracked

So off to the interweb I went & I’ve ordered a full set of new rubbers now to replace all of this crap & get a car that won’t leak on me when it rains & that I can wash without getting water in the car

I’m off to the US tomorrow so that will set the project back a bit again as I’m not here to get things done, so I threw the cover over the old girl again & this is how she’ll sit again for the next two weeks

Whilst I was away in the US my new wheels turned up… they are 17” versions of the original 14” Magnum wheels that where shipping on the cars back in the day… I went with 17x8 for the fronts & 17x9 for the rears

I also got a new set of shiny centre caps for the wheels..

I needed to get a set of 17’ wheels to go over the big break upgrade that’s (hopefully) in shipping right now to me & I’m not mad on most modern 17” wheels on Muscle Cars, but I think that these look the part as they are copies of the original design..

Now to go tire shopping, sadly I don’t think that anyone makes a 17’ tire with raised white lettering & I will miss that classic Muscle car styling cue.. but so be it

A small update from the log weekend just gone, we had plans to be with friends & the like so not a lot happened in fairness.. but the few small things that did happen made a huge difference..

First up, I had a very small job that gave more satisfaction that I can even begin to convey.. the task involved 2 screws & 2 small bolts… these where used to attach the Vic plates to the old girl… yes after what seems like forever she is finally legally on the road now.. happy days indeed now

Now in order to get the plates yet another engineering inspection was required, so off I drove to have that done & I noticed a few issues (to be expected with a car that’s been apart for a year)… first up was the gear linkage wasn’t set right anymore after the gearbox removal & refit, this intrigued me I must say as I hadn’t alter the length of the cable & the gearbox is in the same hole it came out of.. anyway the linkage was too long & when in D it was pushing on the selector so when you put your foot into it or taped the gearshift it would pop into neutral.. & reverse was a bit hard to find, you had to wiggle the shifter forward & back to find it… not the end of the world but annoying. So up the hoist went & I had a close look at how the linkage is adjusted…

Luckily it’s so simple that it’s a 2 minute job, disconnect the cable from the selector shaft & let it hang down

Then just move the round block at the end to adjust the length of the cable, now all the gears are where I expect them to be & it holds in everyone

Once done with that I decided to bolt on a wheel so I could look at the gaps & measure the clearance I have to work out what tires I can fit without touching the guards or relocating the rear springs.

From what I’ve measured & what YearOne recommend & doing the math to try & match the 14” rolling diameter I’m going with 245/45R17 up front & 275/40R17 for the rears..

My replacement rubber kit for the doors & windows turned up, but I didn’t have time to tackle that this weekend… so they can wait..

Now some other new issues that I found on my shake down run are that my dash lights no longer work…. They were on but a bit dim the other night & I casually & perhaps a little too expectantly reached for the dimmer knob & turned it with confidence… misplaced confidence it seems as the whole dash just went black & that was all she wrote! Bugger! So I couldn’t find a NOS dimmer switch, but I have found a refurbished one & ordered that, so looks like the dash is coming out again soon..

The other issue I found is that my alternator is now dead… it’s giving out just on 11 volts.. so a new one has been ordered too, for now I’ll just have to charge the battery & drive only in daylight if I absolutely need to get the car out.

Took the wheels down to the local tire joint this morning & had some new rubber fitted up to the wheels… I gotta say I really love how these Magnums have turned out, they look better in person than the pictures show & they look good in the pics…

That’s it until my parts arrive…. Oh & yes I know I have to pull the wheels off again to fit the centre caps.. but as they require some fettling to fit, I’ll get to that on the weekend..

So yet again my work life & lack of parts has gotten in the way of play here… so as I’d said within a day of getting the car on the road my alternator failed & only reads 11v at best & the dimmer switch on my dash seems to have died when I went to adjust it & has taken all my dash lights with it…. So off I went to the internet that night & I ordered a replacement dash dimmer from the US & a replacement alternator from Sydney & given the need for the alternator is greater than the need for the dash dimmer switch I opted for expedited shipping of the alternator from Sydney as last week was only a 3 day work week..

So before I packed my bags to hit the road for work this turned up from the US… I couldn’t believe how fast it came..

It looks brand new… I didn’t want to pull the dash out yet as I figured my Alternator coming from so close would be here any day.. but it never came.. I was told yesterday that it will take a few more days, I should have ordered one from the states.. would have been quicker I reckon.. hopefully it will be at home waiting for me when I return & I’ll fit it then along with the wheel centre caps I have..

Looks like a nice simple job, the backing plate goes in from behind & sits against the inner lip & then screws the cap on.. should finish the wheels off nicely..

I now fear it will be bloody winter before I have the car ready to drive.. at least with the new alternator I’ll be able to run the lights & the wipers I guess & I’ll fit the new rubber seals so it’ll be dry inside…

So I’m back from two weeks travelling & I managed to steal an hour in the garage tonight, so I decided to swap the alternator out… I had been mindful to order the exact same one that I was replacing, so single post externally regulated, twin pulley chrome birdcage was what I wanted…

So I had a quick look at the back of the new one when I pulled it out of the box… single post, check… two blades to connect the wires from the regulator mounted on the firewall…. Hmmm no… looks like the external regulator is actually built into this one.. the blades are already wired up to a chrome box on the main body of the cage

So I removed the old alternator out of the bay

& left the twin wires for the single post dangling when they could poke me in the eye later

I then started to explore the original regulator on the firewall to ensure that it really was going to be as simple as just removing that & the extra wiring from the engine bay & that no other wire ran anywhere from or too it

Nope… just two holes left in the firewall now

So this new Alt is definitely a neater setup than the old Alt & external regulator one

It was nice to do such a simple job on the old girl without any past owners muppetry showing up to surprise me..

It’s late at night here now & my neighbours have some young kids so I’ve opted not to fire her up to check that all is good with the multi-meter tonight… I’ll do that Saturday before pulling the dash apart to swap out the dimmer switch..

Just a brief update from the weekend just gone… as you can see from above, the new Alt was installed but I never fired the car up as it was late at night during the week & I didn’t want to piss my neighbours off anymore that I have too… so I went to the garage Saturday morning at a sensible time & fired the old girl up & ran the multimeter across the battery & across the Alt itself & happy days it’s reading over 14 volts.. as does the volt gauge in the car so seems to all be working..

Then I back the car out of the garage & saw this new pool of green blood under her nose…

Bugger… where the hell is this coming from… a quick look under the car shows it’s leaking from the bottom bolt on the Alt bracket..

I then had a look in the drip tray under the car & found this shim

When I was removing the old Alt there was a spacer on it that fell under the car & I must not have noticed that there was also a 2nd shim or spacer whatever you want to call it & I can only assume that without this spacer it’s pulling the bracket in towards the engine at the top & that pressure is causing the leak at the bottom of the bracket.. so I removed the Alt & refit with the spacer & tightened everything up again & was happy to see that that has cured this new leak again..

Next on the to do list was to pull the dash switches out again..

This time to replace the dash light dimmer switch, the bottom switch shown here

Unlike the headlight switch & the wiper switch that I’d replaced before, in order to get this switch out I had to split the dash face panel from the switch frame itself

I opted to give the switch panel a good clean, especially the black hollows that the switch knobs have always prevented me from cleaning properly

Then with the dash all back together, this is what it looks like with the lights off

& now with the lights on.. excuse the fuzzy pic but with no flash on the camera really needed a tripod methinks

Now with the important stuff out of the way, the last thing to be done on Sat was the cosmetic task of adding the centre caps to the new rims, this was a simple.. the centre caps are a two part install, a black holder that slide through the wheel centre from behind & then two screws attach it to the cap itself

Cap installed

They finish the rims off nicely I think… still very happy with these wheels..

That was the time I got to play in the garage on Sat.. Sunday then was a lovely sunny day here in Melbourne & I spent most of the day out in the car… went to a Cars & Coffee meet in the morning & then spent a few hours driving along the coast with my other half.. put nearly 200 miles on the clock & touch wood she didn’t miss a beat… next task is to replace the door & window rubbers.. but I’m off to the US for a bit now so it may be 3 weekends from now before I can get to that, unless I get some time one night this week to start..

Got back from the US on Saturday so I spent a chunk of Sunday in the garage doing the last few little jobs that I have the parts for, namely replacing all the door & window rubbers & then some small shiny chrome trim bits that I’ve wanted to replace for a while but kept putting off as there was nothing really wrong with the old ones…

First up was to replace the rubber strip that seals between the front & rear side glass

The chrome trim is mounted to the winder & doesn’t have to be taken off, so the replacement piece is just the rubber insert

You just slide the old one out & the new one in… couldn’t be simpler

The door rubber is held in place with little white clips that click into holes in the door, it was surprisingly easy to get these out & even though the new rubber kit came with plenty of these, I reckon I could have reused a lot of the old ones if I’d needed too

The kit also came with new hard end plates to screw in

The Upper window rubber was actually glued in at all on my car, so removal & clean-up was a lot easier than I’d planned for

The destructions that came with the kit, said to only glue & screw the end of the upper rubber in place, so that’s all I’ve done for now

All up the seals look great.. but as they are brand new they are pushing the glass outwards a bit & the seal between the front & rear glass is not perfect, but I suspect that the rubber will soften & the glass slowly move back in with time & it’s a smaller gap than I had before anyway..

I also bought a complete bump stop kit for the car as there are none on any of the panels & I’ve been replacing these as I find holes that look like they should have a bump stop… so 2 per door where added

The next thing on the to fix list was the drivers side interior light switch, it’s been broken since I bought the car, you can see the body of the switch is just empty

They make two types for the Challenger, a single wire & a dual wire connector type… I’d ordered both a while back so I could be sure I had the right one (in hindsight very happy I did that)

Once I’d pulled the interior trim off it was clear that the driver’s side is the single wire connector type & the passenger side is the dual wire

That lead to some head scratching on my part… so RTFM it was..

Turns out that although the driver’s side is a single connector it’s actually got an extra wire for a buzzer of some description… anyway, try as I might I could not work out for the life of me how to connect this to the new single connector switch

So in the end I gave in & cut the connector off & rewired a couple of spade bits so I could use the twin wire connector to match the passenger side one

With that done, I decided to fit the last remaining shiny new bits that I had laying around the garage.. swapped out the badly scuffed, dull & dented sill plates for a new set, the pictures don’t show just how dull & scratched they were… all nice & shiny now..

Hey Guy’s, just a quick update on this project…. It’s just been lots of driving the last few months which has been great.. but no I feel it’s time to do some more upgrades/repairs to the old girl.

First up my Baer Big brake upgrade finally turned up… this has been a bit of a long process to actually get them, but long story short the first kit I’d chosen (Wilwood) turned out not to be street legal in Australia.. so I upgraded to a Baer setup.. first batch wasn’t right & had to be redone from memory.. 2nd set was shipped out of Sydney but went missing in transit.. but the 3rd & final set made it to me & they look great… BTW quick shout out to Ray Jnr at Pentastar for being so good & easy to deal with through what became an almost comical list of issues..

The front & rear kits look like this..

The fronts are a 13” crossdrilled & slotted rotor

The calipers a 6 piston set up

The rears are a 12” disk which has the drum handbrake built into the rotor

The rear calipers are a 4 piston set up, these rears are the spec that Baer recommend to balance the front set up

I’ve also found some other things that I think it’s time I fixed.. the bottom of my exhaust headers are badly smashed from years of what I can only assume was Dukes of Hazzard style jumps, so I ordered a new set of ceramic coated one to replace them

Also both of the engine mounts are showing signs of wear & cracking so I’ve ordered a new set of upgraded mounts now..

Finally the engine it’s self has started to develop several oil leaks, the works from what looks to be the rear main seal, so I’ve ordered a complete engine gasket kit & a full set of frost plugs & I’ll pull the engine out & replace the gaskets to fix any leaks, replace the mounts, the exhausts & from the sounds of it the harmonic balancer sounds likes it’s on its way out so I’ll probably swap that & give the engine a good once over to see what if anything needs to be done..

I was so tempted to start ripping the brakes off this weekend & fit the new ones, but I’ve opted to wait for all the above parts & do all the work at once…

So most of the new parts I’d ordered turned up last week… it looks like the weather will be nice on the weekend so I’ll get a few miles in cruising before I take the old girl off the road & pull the engine out.. so I now have a new set of ceramic coated performance headers to replace the badly battered & rusted ones on their now…

I also have the gasket kit, which is of course the main reason I’m pulling the engine as my rear main seal is buggered now… I also have a full set of frost plugs for the block..

I also have a new set of uprated engine mounts to replace the badly worn ones in there now..

I’ve not been happy with the wear on the shafts on my center carb for a while now & if you read this thread all the way through you may remember that the metering block is not the correct one, it was one I pulled off another Carb I had laying around… so I opted to buy a new 500cfm center 6 pack carb..

Another think that has been bugging me lately is that the external balancer on the engine has started to wobble about & make a very crappy sounding rattle at idle now, so I ordered a new one to swap out whilst I have the engine out

I also ordered a new chrome dual pulley crank end… for no reason other than the old one is dented on one side & it’s something that I notice every time I look under the bonnet & it annoys my OCD..

I’ve also ordered some other new parts that I will need for the big brake upgrade… but more on that when they turn up & I start that work